My Mission & Vision
My Mission
I’m here to help you to become more human again, by coming into balance, and honouring and nurturing your mind, body and Spirit. And to help you do the same for others.
My Vision
My vision is to be a global leader in sonic, percussive, somatic and Shamanic healing, by providing exceptionally powerful, incomparable, world-class experiences, trainings, performances, workshops and research.
Who I am, What I do
I am a father, a husband, a brother, a neighbour and a proud member of my community, Seaton Village, a proud Torontonian and a passionate and patriotic Canadian. I honoured to be able to live and work in Toronto with my wife and sons, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, the Huron Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
My name is Rufus Glassco. My mother, Jane Gordon. My father, Bill Glassco. My mother’s mother, Elisabeth Counsell, from Hamilton. My Mother’s Father, Walter Gordon, a Scottish Canadian from Toronto. My father’s mother, Willa Price, a Welsh Canadian from Quebec City, my father’s father, Grant Glassco, an English Canadian from Toronto.
I help people like you to become human again. To restore what is missing or has been lost in your life, and to loosen and release what has become stuck inside you. I can help you to come back into balance, so you can fix your life, heal yourself and truly thrive.
I can help you have fun, to move and exercise your body, to breathe more deeply, and to synchronize the rhythms inside you, by entraining with external rhythms. This helps to deeply relax you, to release stuck energy in your body, and come into greater resonance and harmony within yourself, with others, and with Mother Nature.
It all started with facilitating group drumming events
I facilitate unparalleled drum workshops with people of all ages that are a lot of fun, educational, that bring people together in powerful and unique ways and can help you to powerfully de-stress and even to heal
My unique and mystical sound bath meditations and individualized sound treatments will also help you to deeply relax, and help you to heal yourself by releasing the issues in your tissues – stuck energy & emotions that slow down the movement of energy in the body, and alter their natural vibrational state. When I send your body pure notes and harmonic intervals with my sound healing instruments, coupled with intention, those sound waves restore vibrational harmony to your body.
Have you ever sung with others? Didn’t it feel good?
And if and when you decide you’re ready to join us online or outdoors to sing in my community choir called Sacred Song Circles, I guarantee you will feel good on a deep level afterwards, because you have just spent time connecting and being vulnerable with other open-hearted and courageous people like you, in done so in a non-judgmental, safe space. And because you looked into the faces of other human beings and sang them inspirational messages of positivity, hope and empowerment on waves of harmonic, interweaving melodies. And because you got it back from a lot of people in return.
Do you have or want a spiritual connection or path in your life?
If you’re curious or drawn to deepening your connection to Spirit (instead of or in addition to religion, which I value as a practicing Roman Catholic, but do not teach), then my offerings as a Shamanic Coach may be of interest.
I can help you get in touch with, and deepen your connection with your Spirit, and teach you tools and offer you ceremonies to be guided by and communicate with your Spirit, because it knows you better than anyone else, and is here to guide you to do what you’re meant to do while you’re here.
To develop those capacities, we also have to honour, take good care of, and listen to our bodies, which we do in labyrinth ceremonies, Temazcal sweat lodge ceremonies, and through Shamanic drumming practices and circles, and somatic activities in nature, such as Forest Bathing, earthing and ecstatic dance, hula and shaking activities.
My Music
I am also focused these days on writing, recording and sharing my songs and healing music, and combining my skills singer, musician & percussionist has blossomed into new directions lately, and he now facilitates sacred singing classes and is studying to be a community singing facilitator.
What I believe…
We all have rhythm, and we all have a voice. We all have beauty and love within us, and we all have a Soul. We all need and long for real connection with others, with nature, and with all parts of ourselves. Drumming and singing, moving and playing are easy to do and so much fun to learn in a group setting, and even better outdoors in nature. Together we experience how we’re able to create something far greater than any of us can do on our own. So come and join us, to give support and encouragement, and to receive it. Come to a place where you can be heard, and to deeply listen, and to see how good that feels as together, we co-create music, resonance, harmony and community!
Credential and Experience
My Credentials
I am trilingual cultural anthropologist (and a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University), a journalist and documentary filmmaker (and a Bachelor of Applied Arts at Ryerson University) who has lived and worked in Mali, Mexico, and in the US in Cambridge (at Harvard University) and New York City (at Columbia University). I’m a trained HealthRHYTHMS, Drumbeat and Rhythm2Recovery facilitator. And I have trained extensively with Arthur Hull (who founded and professionalized the global drum circle facilitation movement) at his Rhythmic Alchemy Playshops and his Village Music Circle Training in Hawaii.
I am a certified sound healing practitioner, and I learned initially from one of Toronto’s pioneering and most popular sound bath medication facilitators, Darren Austin Hall. I then then took a more in depth training that provided a lot of training in Chinese Traditional Medicine at The Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto.
I am the founder and conductor of Sacred Song Circles, a community choir that I started online in April of 2020, at the start of the pandemic. 6 months before, in the Fall of 2019, I was fortunate to have been selected to go to Victoria, BC, for Community Choir Leadership Training, led by not just the renowned community choir masters Denis Donnelley and Siobhan Robinsong, who founded and co-directed the training, but also by the equally talented Cathy Baker and Dick Jackson, who will eventually take over the reins.
I received my shamanic coaching training from the Institute of Shamanic Medicine, where I currently in my third and final year of training to become a Shamanic Practitioner.
I learned how to facilitate shamanic drum circle ceremonies from Michael Drake, who is a renowned author on the subject. I have spent many years on repeated trips to Mexico studying with chamanes, curanderos and traditional healers, who taught me how to build Temazcal sweat lodges, who guided me through many ceremonies and in depth training to facilitate trilingual Temazcal ceremonies, and who gave me permission to do this work in Canada. I am fluent in Spanish, a gift which enabled, and was also required, for me to be able to study this transformative, life altering and profound tradition.
In 2017 I built a 120-foot diameter Chartres labyrinth on a hill overlooking the lake on our family farm, and I learned how to conduct labyrinth ceremonies from many labyrinth owners from the Ontario Labyrinth Society, of which I am a proud member, as well as some of the leading authors on the subject.
I have learned how to facilitate guided forest bathing walks on our family farm, and in the parks of the Greater Toronto Area, by studying Shinrin Yoku, the tradition from Japan that started it all. I have also learned from some of the pioneers in North America.
My Experience
I have the honour of working with preschoolers, children, teens and older adults, with people recovering from cancer and mental illness, and people with Alzheimers and dementia and their caregivers. I am particularly passionate about facilitating wellness, resiliency and communications workshops for businesses, teachers, and health care and other frontline workers, and well as helping veterans and first responders to recover and heal from trauma.